The lazy weekend sun is setting over Telegraph Hill, south east London, as the local community flocks to an unusual outdoor screening of Grease. They bring their children and their camping chairs, their vintage glad rags and woolly jumpers, their sparklers, flasks and bottle-openers. And of course, they bring their bikes – for tonight’s screening is powered purely by legs. The atmosphere is charged. Children play on bikes as Pink Ladies gather, swirling around with champagne flutes and blond curls, unpacking picnic hampers to celebrate the night in style. Couples pedal side-by-side as the T-Birds arrive. In grunge black leather they ready themselves with beers and blankets. Fathers and sons discuss gear-changes as the BBQ smokes-up, the city lights up, cameras flash and movers and shakers dance to Motown. All around, cyclists pedal away on bicycle generators; tonight, they are the stars. They are the batteries generating the electricity to power our Saturday night entertainment. Welcome to Electric Pedals. Electric Pedals was founded by Colin Flash Tonks as a way of harnessing human power to generate energy from cycling. Since then, the possibilities of bicycle power have radically developed. In Malawi, a young man sets up a backpack cinema in his village, surrounded by fascinated faces. In Berlin, the lights dim in Katie Mitchell’s pedal-powered production of Atmen as the actors momentarily pause to wipe the sweat from their brows. While back in London, it is 22
break time at Horniman Primary School and in the Radio Station Shed young eco-DJs mix with renewable energy. Electric Pedals has become the forefront of bicycle power innovation. But it’s more than that, Electric Pedals is about communication. It’s about connecting people. Whether through outdoor entertainment or classroom education, the focus is on community. Electric Pedals’ collaboration with New Cross and Deptford Free Film Festival meant that more than 700 people came together to sing-along to ‘Greased Lightning’ and swoon over John Travolta. As Jacqui Shimidzu, Community Volunteer and Founder of NXDFFF explains, ‘we could have just had a generator powering this outdoor performance, but Electric Pedals brings added value. People don’t quite believe that cinema can be completely powered by themselves; it’s a spectacle.’ The how of cinema is redefining the extent of what cinema can now be. Dynamic and communal, active participation transforms cinema into an immersive and unpredictable performance where escapism becomes a team-effort - a shared experience - rather than the solitary silence of a dark auditorium. As Tonks makes his last directorial adjustments to the 20 bicycles that will power tonight’s screening, he admits the everpresent ‘fear of jeopardy’ in producing this kind of live cinema: ‘It could all still go wrong.’ And it did.
